The Strange Woods

Here at Timmerwerk I like to use woods from unsuspecting places, from plants and trees that you’d never expect

So what do I mean by strange woods? If you’ve come this far on my site you’ll probably have seen a few pieces made from something you have in your garden or a plant you might have heard about.

This obsession started when my dad got me to prune our lilac bush. I was using the saws and pruners and I was getting somewhat frustrated with how difficult it was compared to the spruces I pruned before. Being a year into my woodworking I couldn’t help but notice the growth rings on the cut limbs. The heartwood was a somewhat standard wood colour, however, there was streaks of solid purple and upon closer inspection purple undertones in the heartwood. I was really taken back and decided I needed to see what this wood was all about. I started milling the branched and was not disappointed, it was one of the most beautiful woods I had ever seen. I still am making pieces from these logs and branches, and if you’ve boughten or are considering buying a lilac piece it more than likely came from that bush.

Milling the logs got me thinking, “Can I just use anything woody?”. The answer is yes, and this changed the way I saw the world. I realized that wood, bluntly, is a mutilated tree corps. The life of the tree can be recounted and the inner workings exposed. Through “hunting” the vines, trees, and other woody plants I have learned a great deal about the natural world around us.

And that is why I use the weird woods nobody uses. It’s a reflection of the beautiful natural world around us, to get a little poetic, it shows how much inner beauty we never consider in the world around us.